


Over The Glowing Hill

by auroreanrave



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Immigration & Emigration, Implied Sexual Content, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Multi, Murder Mystery, Prom, Psychics, Supernatural Elements, underground fighting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-04-14 22:56:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4583301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auroreanrave/pseuds/auroreanrave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a group, the eight of them start to build their lives back together, in a sleepy Midwestern town, and deal with stuff kids their age shouldn't have to deal with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. now you have me on the run (wolfgang)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a random idea I had for a multi-chapter fic involving the eight teenagers having come together and how their friendship and relationships helped each other heal and rebuild following their own problems and issues, as well as having them deal with prom, jail, family troubles, and an unsolved murder.
> 
> The title of this fic, and all of the chapters, comes from Florence + The Machine's song 'Queen of Peace'.

The seat is cold underneath Wolfgang's backside as he shifts from side to side, eyes never moving from their fixed position, watching the large illuminated clock above the front desk as it ticks slowly from 2.31am to 2.32am, the memory of handcuffs still lingering on his wrists.

Sheriff Gorski has already been into see him, head shaking in disappointment as Officers Longkampf and Abbott hauled Wolfgang, sullen and silent, his fingers stained bright green from the spray can they'd caught him with. "Christ, Wolfgang, again?"

Gorski had planted Wolfgang in the chair, while he spoke to Abbott and Longkampf and listened to their report; Wolfgang, scaling the chain-link fence of the town's old cement factory, and spray-painting obscene words in English and German into them, in a shade of neon green not too dissimilar to Kermit the Frog's emerald hue. Wolfgang had picked at the skin around his fingernails and listed their mistakes and omissions in his head - namely that Felix had been there, a list on his phone helping Wolfgang spell the words correctly, and that Felix had run at Wolfgang's insistence.

"Dude. Seriously?" Wolfgang feels Will's weight on his side as he drops into the seat next to him. Wolfgang isn't sure if Will was contacted by his father in an attempt to scare Wolfgang straight, an attempt which is, according to Sun's half-joking, all-dry calculations, with about a 22% chance of success, at best, or if Will just happened to be in the police station, and overheard his dad.

"Not happy to see me, Will?" Wolfgang finally breaks his gaze away from the clock to see Will, tired-looking and frowning, two cups of the station's awful coffee in his hands, with one proferred to Wolfgang. Wolfgang hates the shit coffee here, it's over-processed taste, the fact it comes in a paper cup from a machine older than he and Will are.

He still takes the coffee because Will is one of his best friends, is the person who convinced his dad to take Wolfgang in, and he still has manners, surprisingly.

After a couple of sips in companionable, if slightly strained, silence, Will speaks. "I was here already, wanted to see my dad before I went home. Had a date with Riley."

Wolfgang smiles. "Did you leave out the part where you snuck into the rave at the Marquise tonight? Not exactly conduct befitting the son of a sheriff."

Will, to his due, blushes a little and takes another sip of awful burnt coffee to compose himself a little. "Not exactly. But anyway, stop deflecting: why were you doing it?"

"I was fucking bored. Spending my Friday nights inside watching shit on Netflix might be some peoples' idea of fun. Not mine."

"And you couldn't have just gone to the movies or come to the rave with me and Riles? It had to be scrawling swear words in German in ten foot high letters? I'll have some of those embedded in my brain, man."

Wolfgang snorts a little, and it raises a smile from Will. Wolfgang can spot traces of rave paint on Will - a pencil-thin streak along the nape of his neck, cerulean against Will's pale skin. "If I wanted to see you and Riley practically making the beast with two backs, I could always just turn to my left at lunch period. No need for a rave for that."

Truth is, Wolfgang has always had a rolling heat, a need, rumbling beneath the surface of his skin. Something he couldn't fight out or bite out or talk out; a desire to run wild, like a lycanthrope as the moon bursts into full silver shape. He knows he's quiet most of the time, and can even be the well-adjusted teenager everyone expects in a small town. Then something snaps and he thinks of his father and peanuts and beer and blood in his mouth and adrenaline surges like a volcano in his chest and he has to do something to sate it; otherwise it might pour out of him, burning the heart out of him, hurting the people he cares about. Felix. Kala. Will. Everyone.

Will blushes, and is almost at the verge of landing Wolfgang with a retort, when Sheriff Gorski ambles over, his own cup of coffee in one hand, and a manila folder in the other. "Boys." He takes the seat opposite Wolfgang.

"Wolfgang... you gotta stop doing shit like this, son. I mean, don't get me wrong, you graffiting the side of some old dive building with expletives isn't the crime of the century, but I've seen this kind of shit before with grown-ass men, who then get it down on their criminal records, and it fucks up their lives. No lies."

He's not an idiot. He knows this. He just... forgets sometimes. Wolfgang's already got a shit past behind him - mother dead, father dead in an automobile accident, history of abuse, of petty crime expunged by lenient criminal courts. It's only because Will has a saviour complex and a compassionate streak a mile wide that Sheriff Gorski had even agreed to letting Wolfgang stay with them in their spare room as a foster kid, rather than returning to the home.

"I know." He mumbles. Will nudges him with his shoulder but says nothing.

"If you... Christ, if you need like some counselling or some kind of creative outlet, then that's fine, we can work with that. Will had some issues when he was a kid, and finding the right outlet for him..." Gorski shrugs. Wolfgang is surprised; Will has big heart eyes for his dad's profession, keeps his room reasonably neat, and is even part of the basketball team in the winter months. He doesn't seem like the kind of kid who needed a 'creative outlet'.

He turns to Will, who shrugs. "I had some issues. Shoplifting, mainly. Dad found this sports camp for the summer, and they taught me a lot."

Gorski leans in towards Wolfgang. "The charges have been dropped, they won't even appear on your record as a pre-adult citation. Just... we'll talk tomorrow about the camp, alright? Will can show you the place online, right?"

Will nods, taking Wolfgang and his father's empty coffee cups from them. "Absolutely. I'll hook you up." He rises, heading over to the water cooler, where the appropriate trash can is.

"Thank you. I'm sorry for... me." Wolfgang says, deflating a little at the end. Gorski shakes his head. "Don't apologise. Or at least, not for yourself. Probably apologise for writing 'pussy ass motherfuckers' on a wall in bright green paint, but that I can deal with anyway." Gorski smiles, patting Wolfgang once on his shoulder as he stands, leaving Wolfgang alone. "Will'll take you guys home."

He checks his phone. Felix is back home, apologising for leaving Wolfgang, even though it had been his suggestion. Wolfgang shoots Felix a quick text, letting him know that he's not being charged, but that they'll have to do something else next time.

Wolfgang makes his way over to the front entrance as Will jogs over, keys to his vaguely sensible pickup truck in his hand. "Come on. Home. I need some sleep. You do too."

"And I don't suppose you'd get that Riley's." Wolfgang grins as Will flushes a deep shade of red. Riley's father is infamously open and accepting with his daughter's expressions of creativity and sexuality. According to both Will and Riley, in equal shades of mortification, he'd been sat downstairs one morning after Will had snuck into Riley's room well past curfew, and had greeted both Will and Riley with "thank God I have those noise-cancelling headphones after last night", forcing Will to flee without his wallet and Riley to take to her bed and play The Ramones until her blushing had subsided.

"Don't remind me," Will sighs, "her father still grins at me every time I pick Riley up. It's embarrassing, knowing my future father-in-law has at least heard... us."

"Isn't that the point of the headphones?"

"Unless he has psychic intuition letting him know in advance when his daughter and her boyfriend are going to be having sex in an audible distance, he must have heard something." Will looks patently horrified by this realisation, and glumly moves towards his car, unlocking it.

Once they're both inside, Wolfgang finishes buckling his seatbelt, to ask: "Father-in-law, eh? I didn't know things were that serious." Except that he did, because when the eight of them become something closer than friends, than family, stronger than blood and water, he knew deep in his bones that Will and Riley would end up together. "Or at least," he rectifies, "not so soon."

Will turns on the radio, the sound of some alt-indie stuff, all quiet acoustic guitars and half-murmured male vocals, floating out. "Not like right away. Finishing high school and college and careers and shit, but I have a plan. Anyway, make fun; Mr Dandekar won't let his daughter date a felon."

Wolfgang nods, as Will peels the truck away from the police station, and checks his phone. He has a couple more messages coming in from his friends - Nomi snarking about breaking him out of jail, if he needs to, and one from Capheus, all eager emojis, hoping that he will get out in time to meet them for a study session at Sun's the following day.

Wolfgang reclines against the seat, thinking of his warm bed at home, and of Will beside him, singing along to the song on the radio, and of Kala, her dark skin and soft hair and the radiant way she says his name.

Wolfgang signs up for the sports camp two days later.


	2. suddenly i'm overcome (sun)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something rocks the group's world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your lovely notes and support. This chapter is where things start to heat up and the group experiences something transformative. Some triggers are mentioned in this chapter, such as blood and hints of trauma, so please don't read if you think this might affect you.

Sun arrives early, as always, as the old town clock strikes twelve with a series of bell tolls, and turns with her back to the brick of the cinema. She's still and quiet, and content enough to listen to the sounds of the street.

She listens. She listens to the sounds of Mrs Hanson coming out of the local supermarket, bags laden with fresh produce in her hand, on her phone to her daughter, talking about the dinner they're having on Friday. Sun can feel the wind on her face, her hair shorter now than it was half an hour ago, so no need to tie it back with a hairband.

She normally uncurls her mp3 player from her pocket, and listens to the music Riley picks out for her while she waits for the others to get here. Riley creates mixes for all of them, spends her hours in free period curating tracks for what she knows they might like or need. Upbeat pop for Capheus to listen to in the car, some intense experimental black metal for Wolfgang's boxing training sessions, sensual romantic tracks for Lito's dates with Hernando. Sun herself receives playlists for training, and for relaxing; she practises her kickboxing and Krav Maga to Infected Mushroom demos and Nervo tracks, and listens to Jhene Aiko and Vienna Teng when she can't sleep at night.

But she doesn't now - mainly because she can spy Capheus coming towards her, grin as wide and bright as the sun. He still always wears a couple of layers too many, even in the bright June sun, a leftover from his former home in Nairobi. Sun knows that kind of disconnect - she'd spent the first year in America as a child, refusing to eat anything that wasn't imported directly from South Korea, and costing her father thousands in importing food costs.

"It's a beautiful morning!" Capheus says, rolling up the sleeves of his long-sleeved shirt, and turning to rest against the brick besides Sun. "I nearly ran all the way here."

"That's a surprise. It would take the forces of hell to drag you away from the Damn Van." Sun knows that Capheus' pride and joy, a battered black minivan, is actually called the Van Damne after his most favourite actor. She just chooses to tease him about this, to say the wrong name with stoic amusement; she knows the others do too.

"On such a gorgeous day, I'm willing to give him a day off." Capheus grins, and digs around in his jeans pockets for his battered wallet. They're piling together to see the new Avengers movie, and while Sun prefers her martial arts movies (sometimes she's a cliche. sue her) and her dramas, she's not aboving action setpieces and ogling the shape of Chris Evans' arms for a couple of hours.

"Have you finished your history assignment yet?" Sun asks, politely. She and Capheus share a history with Riley, twenty seven other students crammed into a too-small classroom, and Mrs Bennett, a plus-sized African-American woman in her late twenties with a passion for medieval history and a doting husband who looks startling like Luke Hemsworth.

"Sort of. Riley helped me with the outline. I just need to actually write it." Capheus' expression clouds for a moment. Sun knows he can't find a connection with history - he thrives on the now, the present, the future. Examining the dusty roads of past events, and the little train of events holds no appeal for him. Sun, on the other hand, loves the details, the little click-click of minutiae that forms the columns of civilisation. She and her father have this in common.

"Let me know if you get stuck. I can swing by and help you finish it." Capheus' smile returns and he bumps his shoulder into hers affably. Sun helps him with his work whenever he needs it; just as he helps with her driver's ed, and helps with reverse parking.

Their pleasant reverie is broken by Kala, walking up to greet them, her hair combed into a neat French braid that's laced with flowers, and by Will, who pulls up down the street in his truck, Riley in the front seat and Wolfgang behind the pair in the cab.

"If this movie is shit, Capheus," Wolfgang says, emerging from the truck and moving over, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket, "I am totally blaming you. You love all this superhero bull."

"I wanted to see it too." Riley swipes lightly at Wolfgang's shoulder, then leans forward to hug Capheus, Kala, and then Sun. Sun pockets her phone, and looks to the front of the cinema where the bored cashier is busy playing Kwazy Kupcakes on her own iPhone to notice them.

"I've heard good reviews about it." Kala offers, smile ducking a little in Wolfgang's direction as he comes to stand beside her, their hands brushing in a way that Sun always notices. "Plus I really liked the last 'Captain America' movie, so I'm hopeful."

"Yes!" Capheus crows in delight. "'Civil War' was amazing!"

"I prefered the last 'Thor'." Sun says. She shrugs at Will's confused look. "I like the mythology. Plus Chris Hemsworth has such a pretty face."

Riley beams at her. "He has the best face." She presses a kiss to Will's face as he pouts a little. "Best face of a movie star. You have my favourite ever face."

"You sound like a serial killer." Wolfgang jokes darkly. "'Favourite faces.'"

Will's face shutters for a moment, tiny and insignificant, but Sun spots it. She knows his reaction - the flood of memories that kicks through him with the force of a rollercoaster, all swooping, sickly adrenaline. Sara Patrell, eight years old, missing and gone. Will's dad had been the lead investigator, and Sun had remembered Will weeks afterwards, years before they were friends, silent and pale in the playground. Riley had once told Sun that Will sometimes still dreamed about her, Sarah, her voice echoing out in the soft, quiet, dark, until Will awoke with a start.

Riley checks her phone with the buzz of a text message: "Lito hopes we have fun; he and Hernando and Daniela are at an emergency drama club meeting. Something about one of the leads falling ill."

Will nods. "And Nomi's got a doctor's appointment. Plus I think she and Amanita are avoiding the chance of another "Age of Ultron" incident." Everyone nods and murmus in a shared agreement; Nomi and Amanita had infamously almost got banned from the local cinema due to a full-scale, furious argument over Black Widow's arc in the second Avengers movie, leading to Amanita's parents insisting that both girls work voluntarily at the movie theatre for two weekends as penance for soaking the duty manager in Mountain Dew and nearly making him cry.

They pile into the cinema, Will and Kala dispatched to get the refreshments while Capheus and Riley go ahead to secure the best seats; there won't be too many people in this early on a Saturday morning, but still. Sun has spent two hours with her friends crowded into the most awkward seats thanks to massive groups before - she has no desire to repeat the experience.

They're about ten minutes into the previews, the echoes of a terrible comedy film trailer resounding out into the theatre, when it happens.

Sun, in her preferred aisle seat, has just taken a handful of popcorn from Capheus when her mind drops out, becoming a spinning penny in the air, all slow-motion grace and horrible sickening cold feeling in her belly that blooms with nauseous heat for a split second before transforming into black ice.

Her mind explodes with images a second later, coming in rapid succession, a kaleidoscope of sights that rip her breath out of her chest.

A girl, blonde hair stuck to her face with blood, peering from bars; a black trashbag, slick with something, being dragged across the ground of a forest; the gleaming shine of a golden star; the inside of a bedroom, pink and shiny and someone asleep in the bed, the window open with a breeze; someone entering, a shadow.

Sun startles out of it and wants to throw up. Her face is clammy, her bangs slick and stuck to her forehead. The popcorn is crushed to crumbs in her hand.

She turns to her side, looking along the row to see if anyone has noticed her, when she spies Will, Riley, Kala, Capheus, and Wolfgang all staring at one another. Their pallors are grey under their skin, their bodies rigid with tension.

"What the fuck just happened?" Wolfgang hisses. His eyes are wide. "Did - did you see - did we all - ?"

"See that girl and the forest and the blood?" Kala asks, fingers going to the Ganesha charm around her neck. "I did."

"So did I." Capheus nods, and Sun adds her own slight nod to the consensus.

"Will?" Riley whispers. Sun leans across Capheus to see Will, his expression pinched, his eyes almost glassy.

"That's her." Will whispers, almost inaudible over the sound of the trailers. Somehow Sun hears him. "That's Sara."

 

* * *

 

They take Will home straight away, Capheus driving them all there while Will curls up in the backseat, his head in Riley's lap. Kala fields calls from Nomi and Lito, both of them calling to share their own experiences, their own shared visions. Both of them arrange to meet at Will's house as soon as possible.

Fortunately, Will's father is on duty, meaning that the group have the house to themselves, Sun opening the door with the house key Riley slips from Will's pocket.

"Okay," Nomi says, arriving through the back door like she always does, Amanita in tow, "what the Hell did we just go through?" The group is gathered around the island in the kitchen, some of them on the bar stools tucked there, some standing. Will and Riley are curled up on the couch in the living room, Will drifting off to sleep.

"Shared vision? Prophecy?" Kala offers. Sun restrains a roll of her eyes, but then again, how can she explain it? "Maybe something we ate?"

"Can hallucinogens cause shared visions?" Lito asks. He's been clinging to his faded paperback of "The Winter's Tale" since he arrived, Hernando and Daniela heading off to give him some space. Sun wonders when he will emerge from his fugue, melting away from stone into flesh like Hermione. She feels like marble herself.

"Only in rare circumstances, but in those cases one person's delusion or hallucination feed into the others." Kala says, hands spread across the stone of the breakfast nook, staring down at it as if she can extrapolate meaning from the pale grooves and neat squares of marble. "Like... if someone says they see lions, then everyone else in a vulnerable state sees lions."

"Yeah, but none of us spoke to one another. Fuck, two of us weren't in a half-mile radius of you guys." Nomi argues. Amanita brushes her bare upper arm with her hand in a vague expression of comfort and support.

"I mean... there is ESP." Amanita says, to meet everyone's stares. Sun understands the quick flash of 'wild deer' in her eyes, the look that is unused to having the attention of everyone in an unfamiliar group on her. Amanita isn't really Sun's friend - not yet - but she's brave and different and Sun has nothing but respect for her at least, if not affection.

"What do you mean?" Sun says, and Amanita smilles a little.

"Extra-sensory perception. Mankind has been aware of individuals who have either possessed it or experienced it for centuries. Every culture has some history or mythology based around the idea of people being aware of knowledge that they couldn't possibly have known otherwise."

"So... psychics?" Lito asks. He sounds as sceptical as Sun, but she has the good grace to not let it show on her face. She can feel the telltale buzz of her cell phone in her pocket, the special three-one-three buzz she assigned to 'Joong-Ki, and ignores it. She has better things to do, to deal with, than dealing with her brother's petty shit. Last time she had had to haul his ass out of a tiny gambling ring underneath the high school's gym, dislocated one particular loathsome asshole's elbow, and deliberately let her father ream him out with no recompense.

The quiet rage still sits underneath her skin like an emerging bruise. She felt it when she found Kala, cowering under the bleachers to avoid the taunts, and Lito's sad face when he found 'FAG' on his locker, Nomi's resignation when her backpack was torn up from the meathead jock pals of Will's trying to grab her estrogen medication. She felt that rage, under her skin, as cold as nitrogen, and she pushed it all into her fists.

(The fact she received two months of detention for beating the shit out of a third of the basketball team, two skinheaded lowlifes in Kala's Spanish class, and another three of the football team is a small price to pay.)

"Well, maybe, but more like an intuitive link between minds. A hive mind." Amanita swings herself up onto the counter behind her. Sun watches as Nomi gently nudges a porcelain cookie jar away from Amanita's thigh and the edge of the counter. "You know that really cheesy old Greek myth? You know the one they always try and peddle at Valentine's Day about how human beings originally had two heads and shared a heart, and that the gods split them up so that they would always be looking for each other?"

Lito raises his hand. "I used that in my Valentine's celebration to Hernando. Is it cheesy?"

Capheus manages a faux-cheerful 'no' as everyone else, Sun included, choruses 'yes'. Sun remembers Lito's 'celebration' last year, back when none of them were friends - it was full of sonnets and lots of red...  _everything_.

"Anyway," Amanita chimes in, "what if this... split happens on a psychic level between people, maybe without them even knowing it? All of you guys are connected, one way or another."

"Like a karass." Sun says, surprised that the words come straight out of her mouth, bypassing her brain entirely. She feels everyone's eyes on her, even Riley's from on the couch, Will's dozing head in her lap.

"A what?" Capheus asks.

"Kurt Vonnegut." Will's voice, sleepy and low, still sounds clear in the kitchen. Sun nods, her eyes rising to meet Will's as Riley slowly unfolds her legs and both she and Will stand to join the group in the kitchen.

"A karass is a group of people, spiritually linked in order to do something important. They don't have to be linked by location or gender or anything. They're linked because they're supposed to be different, to help one another."

Nomi leans forward, hand on Amanita's thigh. "That... actually could make a lot of sense. I mean, not to get all Hallmark movie with you guys, but... we work, as a group. We work, we connect, despite being different."

"Very fucking different." Wolfgang adds good-naturedly.

"Okay, but this is all irrelevant as to what the vision actually was. That poor girl..." Capheus says, eyes turning to Will.  
Will steps forward, Riley's hand on his waist a steadying presence. He speaks, as if reading from a report. "Sara Patrell. She disappeared when I was eight. She was the same age as me. My dad got lead on the case, spent a month trying to track her down. I spent more time sleeping on the break room couch than at home. After three months they declared her missing, presumed dead. No suspects, her parents moved out of state as soon as the investigation had wrapped up."

"You don't think the parents did it?" Wolfgang asks, his eyes downcast, scuffing the toe of his sneakers against the linoleum floor.

"My dad didn't. They were at work when Sara was taken after school, the car seen at the scene didn't match any of theirs, they came up clean with bank records and background checks and phone logs." Will replies. Sun can practically see it unspooling in his mind, like a moviereel unwinding. The information, the history, the shared experiences. If she was Will, she would have pored over it, examining it until the story became as familiar as the lines of her palms. _Maybe Will did_ , Sun thinks.

"Okay," Riley says, unfurling a sheet of paper from her backpack, the pencilled scrawlings of the beginnings of a musical score on one side, and flipping it. Will hands her a pen from the little plastic pot of assorted pens and pencils on the breakfast nook and Riley writes 'Sara Patrell' and 'Karass' on it, in two separate bubbles in adjacent corners of the page. "We've got two interlocking events - our connection and our vision. I think that we were given this vision for a reason. I didn't even know what Sara Patrell looked like and now all I can see is her face."

"We didn't just see her face." Capheus points out, and Nomi nods, taking the pen from Riley. "He's right - we need to make a list of everything we saw. We might be able to, I don't know, isolate some patterns or images."

Sun watches as the group talks, adding her own visions to the expansive list, and ignores the furtive buzzing in her pocket for the next three hours. She has more important things to worry about.

* * *

 

She returns home at eight, after texting her father to let her know that she'd be later than normal. Sun confirms that all her homework is done, and Capheus drops her off in Will's truck along with Lito who lives down the block.

Capheus cheerily waves them goodbye, peeling away into the night to drop off Kala before returning the truck to Will's. Lito turns to Sun as she begins peeling away her hoodie from her tee shirt. The night is strangely warm for November.

"Sun?"

"Yes?"

"What do you think... _happened?_ "

Sun pauses, tucking her thumbs into the top pocket of her jeans. She knows logic and reason, knows the way to track business through patterns and the cool, quiet feeling of the world slotting neatly into place like a puzzle.

But she also knows the white-hot nausea that clung to her stomach, settling like cement within a heartbeat, the memories of Sara Patrell's screams, the pink bedroom's intruder, and the slick thump of the black trashbag. Sun has that fear clinging to her brain like a second skin, the memories stuck in her mind, as if they're her own.

"I think that we experienced something we cannot quantify. Something terrifying and dark and... _necessary_." The word slips out of Sun's mouth before she can stop it, but it feels right.

Lito nods, and squeezes Sun's hand briefly, before heading down the block to his house, his backpack over his shoulder. Sun watches his shadow go, until he enters his home, making sure he gets home safe.

Sun's father is at the dining table when she walks in, newspaper and pen in front of him. Joong-Ki is slouched on the couch, Spike TV on.

"Good evening, Sun. Are your friends well?"

"They are. Will fell ill in the cinema so we went to his home to make sure he was okay." Sun moves to the open-plan kitchen, opening the fridge for some milk. Sara screaming and a smear of blood on leaves. Sun stills her shaking hands and pours herself a glass of milk.

"Good. You're a good friend, Sun." Her father nods, then turns back to his paper, addressing it instead. "Joong-Ki was trying to contact you earlier. He wanted your advice on a matter. Fortunately it has been resolved."

Sun's eyes flicker to Joong-Ki, watching a re-run of "Justified", then back to her father. "Good. I'm going to go to bed."

"Goodnight." Her father never raises his head from the financial sections of the newspaper.

Once she's inside her room, she strips off her clothes, tossing them in the hamper and rushing into the en-suite shower. Mongshil is already curled up on her bed, and he gives Sun a lazy wag of his fluffy white tail in greeting, before drifting back into sleep.

She scrubs at her skin far longer and rougher than necessary with the lemon and ginger scented body scrub Kala got her for Christmas, and massages shampoo into her short hair. Ten minutes later, she's dried herself off and is dressed in gym shorts and a tank top, ready to tune into her DVR'd episodes of "Orphan Black" when there's a knock at her door.

Joong-Ki is on the other side. "Hey, sis."

"Hi. I would have replied to your texts, but..."

"No no, it's cool." Joong-Ki raises his hands, smiling. A little too friendly. "I just, uh, had a situation that I could have used your help with. Still do, sorta, if you wouldn't mind giving your one and only brother a hand."

Sun raises her eyebrow and Joong-Ki pressed on, stepping close enough that Sun can smell his Axe body spray (which is still infinitely preferabe than the smell of unwashed Joong-Ki). "There's a match. Underground sort of thing. Boswick's fighting and I, um... might have put some money on you competing."

"How much?"

"Five hundred." Sun sighs, more in annoyance than anger. "This is the first, last, and only time! I promise!"

"You promised that last time." Sun points out, and Joong-Ki flushes. "Goodnight, little brother."

She closes the door firmly on Joong-Ki's squawk of protest and settles down on her bed to turn on "Orphan Black". Her mind is whirling - her brother, her friends, Sara Patrell - and she curls up in her comforter, Mongshil padding up the bed and snuffling into her side, so that she can run her hand through his fur.

Sun doesn't sleep that night. She can't begin to figure out how to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I named Sun's dog Monshil because it apparently means 'fluffy' in Korean and I wanted big badass Sun to call her dog Fluffy.


	3. the damage is already done (lito)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lito deals with the pressures of lying about his new revelations, and the group discovers something incredibly powerful and game-changing about their new bond...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! So here is Chapter Three of 'Over the Glowing Hill' which focuses on Lito this time around. Sorry it took me a while to write this one but real life got in the way - as it is wont to do. Part of the Sense8 mythos gets unravelled and revealed here, and I really hope you like it. All science-y stuff is rudimentary, and theoretical, and there is some violence (non graphic) in the story so please be aware. Chapter titles come from 'Queen of Peace' by Florence and the Machine. Hope you enjoy!

Lito rolls out the cracks in his neck, twisting his hips to open up his waist, and meets Hernando's gaze from across his bedroom. His bedroom is small, but it looks out onto the garden, rather than the street, meaning he can sneak out easier if he ever needs to.

Hernando has only recently been allowed back up here - his mother, God love her, had caught him and Hernando half-dressed and making out on his bed, the sounds of an old Hammer Horror movie on in the background because Hernando had insisted on learning his horror culture ahead of Halloween (and Dia de Los Muertos just isn't enough for Hernando's ravenous appetite for knowledge), and Lito had wanted Hernando.

"What's wrong?" Hernando asks, pushing the rims of his glasses up from where they begin to slide on his nose. "You've been skittish all day. It's very weird."

Lito has, to be fair. Ever since he had fainted during drama class, and found his friends had experienced the same visions - _blonde girl, screaming, taste of blood in his mouth_ \- he's been restless. Over the weekend and Monday morning, he went on two-mile runs around the block and down towards the town hall where his mother works as an administrator, running lines in his head for the school play.

"I'm fine. Really." Lito smiles at Hernando, his hands curled into half moons on his shorts.

"You're not. Dani's worried too."

"Dani is too fixated on her own relationship troubles to tell the difference." Lito winces at Hernando's wounded expression, and adds, "Sorry. Low blow."

Daniela has been dealing with the ex-not-quite-boyfriend-from-hell, much to Hernando's consternation. Joaquin Flores is several years older, rejected from college for some questionable behaviours, and with a mean, vicious streak a mile wide. He's also been head over heels for Dani since he first spotted her with her friends Soledad and Maria outside the town's sole Dairy Queen.

Lito is sure that in Joaquin's mind, he and Dani are Romeo and Juliet; Lito is more apt to compare them to Iago and Emilia. He might not be best friends with Dani the way Hernando is, but the thought of that sociopathic, psychologically abusive bastard laying a hand on her makes rage boil like jet fuel in his brain.

"You know Joaquin's an asshole, Lito. You know Dani needs every bit of support she needs right now."

"She needs to go to the police."

Hernando's frown becomes more pronounced. "No evidence. He can call and text and be persuaded not to, but he hasn't actually threatened her. Not in a way that can land him a restraining order. Or juvie."

"Hernando."

"What's wrong, Lito?" Hernando moves across the room to touch the curve of Lito's cheek to his hand. Normally Lito would slide his hand up Hernando's shirt, press his lips to Hernando's, and let them get in a solid forty minutes of making out before Lito's abuela comes home from her shift at the grocery store and makes them come help her in the kitchen with making churros.

"Nothing." Lito says, his hand resting against Hernando's warm cheek.

Hernando sighs, exasperation colouring his expression, eyes going big and sad behind his round hipster glasses. Hernando's shirt has flecks of blue ink faded into the front of it, and his sneakers are so faded and comfortable that they're practically given a seat at the dinner table at Christmas. He's never loved him more.

"I hate it when you lie to me. When something is wrong." It's a bit of a low blow, and both of them know it, and normally Lito would spill to Hernando, but this is - this isn't normal, this isn't even human. Or maybe it is, maybe this is extra-human, but until Lito and the others figure out what this is...

"I'm not lying. Promise." He squeezes Hernando's hand. "How did the plans for the exhibit go?"

Hernando blinks, then lets himself - Lito can see it in his eyes - be swayed into talking about something else entirely; Hernando is helping organise and is taking part in a local junior and promising artists gallery showing next weekend. Lito and Daniela have already promised to put time in to hand out canapes and platitudes to save Hernando pulling his hair out. Lito is fond of Hernando's hair; he has, after all, a certain investment in it.

They sink onto the bed, skin to skin in places, and talking - but Lito is on autopilot. He's too busy feeling the strands of connection, tethering him to his seven ( _other selves_ , something in his brain supplies for him; it sounds odd but apt, a comfortable name for what they are) friends, to be present.

 

* * *

 

Then, at school two days later, everything changes all over again.

Well, it's more of an escalation, really, but given that he's just experienced a psychic vision of an unsolved years-old murder with his rriends, Lito's allowed to call this new development by a more dramatic name if he wants to. And he does.

It's huge, regardless.

Hernando has just kissed him goodbye on the cheek at his locker, before he and Daniela head off to fourth period history class. Lito has his Math class at the same time, followed by a free period, and he moves along the corridor, thinking about his free period (Kala is going to help him and Will with their chemistry homework in the library) and humming along to the Hailee Stenfield song earworm stuck in his head.

The next thing he knows he's been dragged by the wrist and spun, slammed backwards against the metal railing overlooking the cafeteria below, the corridors and railing-covered balconies for three floors above providing a view of upperclassmen eating mystery meat.

His vision stops spinning enough for it to reveal Joaquin, his fingers tight around Lito's wrist. Joaquin looks awful - his eyes are unfocused, his skin is slick with sweat and pale, and Lito has never been so terrified in all his life.

"Joaquin! Listen to me, you don't have to - "

It's not quite a punch, but still a hit; Joaquin's spare hand balls itself up and cracks Lito across his temple. It's worse than a punch in a way; a punch is clean and pure and white-hot pain. This hit is a sucker punch of the lowest order, a cheap, dizzying trick that doubles Lito's vision and makes him taste bile in his throat.

"She's fucking pressing charges, you little faggot! I'm going to go to jail because some little puta cunt couldn't keep her fucking mouth shut. And I know you're the one who got her to talk."

Lito opens his mouth - to protest, to argue, to ask how Joaquin managed to get onto school campus (he will later learn that Joaquin snuck in and dressed younger to avoid suspicions. avoid the switchblade tucked into his belt) - when another fist lands in his gut, as hard as a lead pipe, and Lito retches in surprise, choking on air.

Then, all of a sudden, and not quite, it happens.

Lito feels the rush in his head, the spikes of adrenaline - white-hot and liquid, mercury in his veins - and he blinks -

\- and he's suddenly being punched in the face, the reverb of pain clattering through him until he can feel his teeth, unfamiliar teeth like he's wearing dentures and he's seeing that Steiner kid smirk at him and he tastes blood in his mouth as he falls to the ground.

Lito takes the moment he has to catch his breath and stare at his hands, which are an unfamiliar dark brown - except that they lose their unfamiliarity a split-second later when he realises that they're Capheus'.

So. This is happening.

He can taste blood in his mouth and raises his hand to touch his - Capheus' - split lip, when he hears a voice from behind him.

"Let him go. I can do this."

The others surrounding Capheus - Steiner and a couple of Lito's more violent cronies - don't hear it, just keep crowing and jeering as Lito raises his head...

To find Sun stood right behind him, her fists clenched and pressed into the jut of her hipbones through her midnight blue workout shorts. Her eyes are bright with the cold fury of a supernova.

"What's going on?" Lito asks as he rises to his feet, and for a moment, Capheus comes with him, mouth moving in a wordless expression of undiluted surprise.

"I'm not sure. But I'm sure as hell going to make sure it ends right now." Sun presses her bare ankle into the exposed flesh of Capheus' side and then everything snaps into a point of light, becoming white for a second before Lito finds himself back against the brick wall of the alleyway they're in.

And then he watches as Sun tears Steiner and his lunkheads to shreds.

It's a blur of motion, Sun spinning on Capheus' ankle to deliver a kick to Steiner's chest that sends him flying, crashing into a pair of metal trashcans. Sun and Capheus flick in and out of each other, like two television stations battling for control. Steiner has a moment of fear, tears in his eyes, before he crumples.

Lito thinks of the second act of Swan Lake - the Black Swan, full of fury, a dance built in the fires of rage and ecstasy - and Hernando sat beside him, his eyes wide and his heart aglow and thinks that Sun was born to dance like this.

She twists one of Steiner's goons - Lito thinks it's Hemmingway, the beefy JV guy who spits spit-sodden balls of graph paper at Melissa Downtrey in Lito's Math class which he's missing right now - and he screams as she bats him away, swinging by the wrist until she can release him into the wall opposite Lito.

The last one standing - Brennerman, his aroma of Ax body spray and habit of tripping up freshmen at lunch - backpedals away until he's sat on his backside against a spilled trashcan, his hands knuckle deep in pizza crusts and banana peels and the peeling pages of an ancient Yellow Pages.

"Try it again, and I'll make sure you can't walk a block without jumping at shadows." Sun says, leaning down, and there's nothing of Capheus' inherent cheerfulness accidentally colouring her words. It's cold and flat and simple, the smooth tones of a fact stated in its crystal truthfulness.

"Lito!"

Lito finds himself... peeling away from himself, it's the only way he can describe it. He floats away, his mind stretching out fingers to touch his other selves as they crowd into his brain. Lito can almost see them, like clouds of colour ghosting in front of him - Will's navy blue and Kala's fuschia and Sun's ice white -

\- and then he's staring at himself from a distance, and in the reflection of the glass windows of the drama club auditorium, he sees blonde hair streaked with blue and Riley's face and a quietly uncomfortable feeling in his uterus and -

Lito whirls like a spinning top, and before he knows it, Joaquin is laid out on the wood flooring, nose bloody and expression wide and open and aghast at getting beaten by a fag of all people. A fag, Lito thinks. Not just a fag though - not anymore. He has seven other selves after all.

It's at that point, with Joaquin moaning on the floor beneath him, the entire cafeteria gazing at him in hushed whispers, and blood on his knuckles, that Lito's brain and body decide to do the graceful thing.

And he faints.

 

* * *

 

 

The others find Lito outside after the last bell, resplendent with trash bag and garbage picker, cleaning up underneath the bleachers. It's a light punishment, fitting, given that Lito did assault someone on campus; but, as soon as the police had been called, and Joaquin had been carted off, his knife tucked in a plastic baggie from the kitchen, Principal Adiche had sat Lito down, calmly thanked him for his intervention in preventing an attack on a student, and had given him one shot of after-school trash-picking. Hernando and Daniela had protested on his behalf, and Daniela had hugged him all throughout their walk back to their lockers, tears in her eyes.

It's fair - it's given Lito more than enough time to think things through. He's got a fading headache rolling at his temple, a combination of Joaquin's nasty sucker punch and the psychic showdown he found himself involved in.

Daniela is the only daughter of Alfonso and Maria Valesquez and Lito accidentally saved her life today. He takes a call from his mom, and spends half an hour calming her down and convincing her that it's fine, he's fine, he loves her, he'll be back home a little while after school. His abuela comes on too, and he tells her the same, and smiles when she praises him for beating the snot out of a sociopath to save his friend's life.

"Lito."

He turns at the sound of Capheus' voice and winces - Capheus is sporting similar injuries to him; a cut lip and bruised face, and Lito drops his bag and picker to embrace Capheus in a quick hug.

"Are you alright?" Lito asks.

"I'm fine. It, uh - I guess we should thank Sun?" Capheus' voice is purposefully light, confusion bubbling underneath the levity. Sun shrugs, the slightest of blushes high on her cheekbones. "It was nothing." She says.

"That was not nothing." Kala argues, and Lito has to agree. "Whatever this... connection is, between us, we need to find out what it means."

"It means we're going crazy." Wolfgang drawls. "Completely loco." He's frowning a little - Steiner is his shithole cousin, and Lito knows that Wolfgang is infinitely happier living with Will and Detective Gorski, rather than being anywhere near Steiner; still, Wolfgang must feel guilty. He can practically taste it on his tongue.

"Whatever happened in the cinema is changing the way our brains relate to one another." Nomi says, her long fingers waving in the air as she speaks. "They're connecting on a cellular level, and are... apparently able to connect with each other on that same cellular, instinctive level. Like quantum physics."

The sea of mostly blank looks around her makes Nomi turn to Kala, who takes the cue. "Quantum entanglement theory states that in theory, two molecules can be in different places in the universe at the exact same time. Now, if we imagine that our brains locked onto the same signal, we're tuned into each other's... frequencies."

"Like the CB radios that truckers use." Riley offers, hand tucked into Will's. Lito notes that she's wearing Will's letterman, her spare hand tucked into the deep warm pocket of the jacket.

"Exactly. Now, when Sun entered Capheus' mind and Lito's too, those same molecules and memories and... mind were able to be in Sun's body and yours and Capheus'. Our minds are sharing akin to a synaesthesiac experience. In 'normal' synaesthesia, two senses of the brain can get crosswired; it's nothing bad, a lot of artistic types have it, but it means that some people can smell sounds or taste colours. Maybe we're doing the same with one another, sharing our senses between us on this psychic link. That's why Sun was able to defend Lito and Capheus - she sensed it on this wavelength and then responded with her own physical presence, which they were able to mimic in their fights."

Everyone stares a bit at Kala as she finishes, her cheeks flushed with the promise of scientific discovery. Wolfgang gazes like he's staring at the stars, Lito notices, and Lito smiles as he scoops up an empty soda bottle and pops into his trash bag.

"So now what?" Will asks. "I mean... this whole thing is unbelievable. Everything. But I think we should have some counter-measures. You know, to maybe stop everyone getting too much of everyone else's... stuff at the same time."

"Agreed. No one wants to be experiencing you and Riley having sex." Wolfgang says and Will chokes on nothing but fresh air as Riley snorts and laughs.

"I don't think it'll be all the time. Probably." Nomi argues. "Just when we're feeling emotional and then we can probably work on blocking it out on times when we need to be alone or when it's inconvenient. I don't want to be talking to myself. Not with my mom around."

There's a murmured ripple of agreement. "How is Daniela?" Capheus asks Lito.

"Fine. A bit shaken, but... she'll be okay. Had to convince her parents to keep her in school; the fact that Joaquin's going to be in jail for the next five years helped her a lot to convince them to let her stay."

Capheus nods, smiling. Steiner and his goons won't be bothering him again, Lito knows; not when he has a psychic bodyguard in Sun, and not when Steiner has to live with the fact that a skinny black kid with a smile like the sun made him cry in a fight.

"Help me out with this?" Lito asks, pointing to the scattered litter underneath the bleachers. He's going to be here for another hour on his own otherwise.

The eight of them get it all cleared within fifteen minutes, and afterwards, Lito kisses Hernando under the lights on his porch, his mother and abuela making disgustingly pleased faces from the living room window, and thinks _I have  no idea what's going on anymore but I have seven other selves and I love you_.

And for the moment, for this one moment in this crazy spinning top of his life, it's more than enough to say those last three words out loud.

 


	4. like the stars chase the sun (riley)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the eve of her biggest night, Riley is confronted with triumph and tragedy...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys. This marks the halfway point in the fic and the point when the big mystery of the fic starts to come together, as well as allowing some minor storylines to converge. I hope you like it! The episode contains some mention of blood and blackouts, so please be wary if these are triggers for you.

The flyer, bright turquoise and black, is warm and crumpled in Riley's hands as she descends the small staircase that leads down to Club Haze. She had seen the flyer posted in the back of Connect Records, the little back alley record shop that she had claimed as a second home within weeks of coming to the town.

The flyer had crackled in her hand as she had peeled it from the wall, readjusting to make sure that the advertisements for Princess Die (shocking pink, all-girl punk pop band) and Deucalion (earth brown and white, singer-songwriter showcase) didn't fall to the ground. The advertisement, asking for all prospective DJs of all levels and skillsets to come for auditions for spots in the Club Haze rota, had stayed warm and crumpled on her bedside table for days, until Will had spotted it and asked her if she was going for it.

"Maybe. It was silly - they'll all be really good. I've only been doing this for - "

"Two years. And I bet you've learnt as much in two years as they have in decades." Will murmurs into her hair. They're curled up on her bed, Riley's fingers tracing patterns and beats in the skin of Will's chest, and Riley can feel the setting sun on her bare back. Her father won't be home for an hour or so, and she has to prepare dinner for them, and all she can think about is the way her heart sings electric when she's performing.

"Will you come with me?" She asks. "Just to stand on the dancefloor and make it look as though I'm amazing?"

"You are amazing." Another kiss on her brow. "But, sure, I'll come. I'll even bust out the moves for you." Riley snorts a little, the melancholy fading as Will proceeds to demonstrate his appallingly cheesy dance moves for her, culminating in a cross-breed between the funky chicken and the cha-cha slide that ends up in Riley laughing so hard she might pee.

The others know about tonight, and even though they can't all make it, the warm feeling in the back of her skull, the newly awakened muscle that says _I am not just me_ , blinks in her mind and says _Good luck, we're all here for you._

Riley's booked the slot, and knows that she's on right in the middle, and that she has to go in alone. No entourage, no support. Riley is thankful she has that warm feeling in her head now, as she steps forward towards the man in front of the club, to the side of the small queue forming.

"Um. Hi. I'm Riley Blue? I - I have an audition."

The man turns and gives her an assessing look - he's tall and sallow, with hair in need of a wash and shampoo tucked into a ponytail. When he speaks, his accent is broad and rough, but unmistakably British. "Ms Blue, glad you could make it. Equipment?"

Riley nods and indicates the large gym bag that Will had acquired from the football team's away gear, with the help of Diego. It has her laptop, and her wires, and her spare decks just in case, inside. Her headphones, second-hand bright blue Beats, are around her neck.

"Great. I'm Nyx. I'll let you get inside, just follow the path around the dancefloor and Jacks'll get you into the green room." Nyx offers his hand and Riley accepts it, ignoring the cool, oil-slick feeling of unease at his touch, before she moves past him, uncomfortably close, and into Club Haze.

Riley's been here more than a few times, and knows her way around - down the steps, around the corridor to the right, and then into the club. The dancefloor is already half-full, the DJ on decks (and presumably rocking their own gig), and Riley takes a moment to appreciate the atmosphere. The swing of bodies in motion, the lights, the thrill of the beat. She's walking through a paradise.

This is where she belongs - she wants this, the chance to make people happy, even if for a night. She feels like she has neon light in her veins when she performs; she wants everything.

She moves along the side of the dancefloor and stops to wave at her friends. Will and Wolfgang, in leather jackets and jeans, looking cool for once in their lives, and, surprise of surprises, Kala, looking nervous but excited, in a dress that Riley knows that Nomi and Amanita persuaded her to buy.

Will was always going to come, but Kala - Riley can feel Kala's mind, and how busy it is, all Type-A excellence and diamond-hard pressures, and Riley is so happy she came out tonight, to lose herself and give her brain a break. Dancing can do that for people. And, of course, Wolfgang followed Kala.

The three of them are in a rough triangle, talking and sipping at their drinks (Will and Kala on Cokes, Wolfgang and his impressive fake ID on beer), and Riley wants nothing more than to run over and hug them all.

However, she has a gig to perform, even if it is only fifteen minutes long, and so Riley continues on her path around the dancefloor, and is soon met at the door to the green room by a smiling boy her own age, checking people off a list on a clipboard.

"Hi. Name?"

"Riley Blue."

"Nice. I'm Jacks. Let me know if you need anything. Your slot's on in half an hour, so just relax. Just think of it as any other job interview." Riley nods as she moves past, and worry begins to flood her stomach. The other people in the room are older, cooler - tattoos encircling their wrists and crawling up their forearms, undercuts and sneers. Riley feels very small and takes the furthest seat she can, away from the others.

"You okay?" She looks - as Will takes a seat beside her. "It's alright, we're all still on the dancefloor. Wolfgang's trying to impress Kala with some dance moves. Not going well."

Riley grins, then realises she looks like an idiot. She fumbles around in her pocket, and pulls out her smartphone, going through the motions of acting like she's actually calling somsone.

"Are they alright?"

"Yep. Fine. I think they're trying to stay out of your head for a bit. Keep you clear."

"And you?"

"I had to see how you were doing." Will touches her arm, and even though there's nothing actually there, she has the phantom brush of warmth there.

"I'm okay. Nervous. This is... shit, this is huge. This is huge."

"Okay. It's alright. If nothing else happens, then you've done this. This is big, and you are bigger, alright?"

Riley nods. The well of darkness inside her, the same that pulled her down and sent her tumbling years ago, is always there, but she can ignore it, she can let it stay under the surface. Even now, she can do it.

"You're right. I'll be fine. I'll see you in a bit. Okay?"

Will nods and smiles. "Okay. Love you. Go kick ass."

Riley grins, then mimes hanging up the call. Will is gone seconds later.

She lets her mind wander, the sounds of the current DJ's mix floating by her ears. Riley considers the transition from the Tritonial remix to the Eighties power ballad remix, noting the slight catch in the movement; not as smooth as they would have liked.

Riley checks her own songs, reorganises some tunes to match the mood and flow of the crowd outside, and removes any that have been repeated. She wants to stand out tonight - and like a firecracker popping in the back of her brain she hears Capheus saying _You will!_

The eight of them have been working on this - it's been three weeks since Lito's incident at the school. Kala and Nomi had devised experiments on their links, and they've been slowly testing them out - driving to the edges of town in Capheus' truck and Will's pickup, to see if they can still contact one another. They can, even from end of the town to the other.

Riley's been picking stuff up - the smell of cinnamon whenever Kala stress bakes; the taste of Wolfgang's coffee, bitter and black, in her mouth; even silly things like that 4 Non Blondes song Capheus had been singing along to a few days ago. She'd had that song in her head since. _I said h-e-y, I said hey, what's going on?_

"Riley Blue?" She snaps her head up out of her reverie, touching her headphones as she looks into the face of Jacks. "You're up. You've got three minutes to sort your station out while Trent finishes his mix."

Riley moves out onto the platform, following Jacks. The sound of the music is deafening, a mellowed-out Satin Jacks song that has everyone swaying. As Trent (pierced septum, manatee tattoo on his bicep) moves away, Riley begins assembling everything. She loads the songs up, her hands on the decks, she has got this.

She looks up, and sees almost everyone is on the dancefloor - their hands raised as they sway. Wolfgang and Kala have their arms around each other, and Will has his eyes right on Riley.

Memories filter into the window of her brain - the eight of them and Amanita, clustered around the island of her kitchen, Will's kitchen, papers and articles and thoughts spilling out over the marbled counters.

"Sara Patrell," Nomi is saying, her laptop in front of her, the casing decorated with stickers from Stonewall and Steven Universe and obscure queercore bands that she and Amanita like, "disappeared nine years ago. No leads, no suspects, right?"

"Right." Will says, and Riley can taste his disappointment and frustation like ashes in her mouth.

"So, where do we start? At the beginning." Nomi loads up a new program onto her laptop, and Riley can tell from the brief flash of disappointment across his face that it's a semi-illegal application to run into the official police department records. "Sara Patrell disappeared in the November of eight years. Nine next month. Her foster parents were suspects for a while, but two months in, the police couldn't find anything beyond her shredded backpack in the Isaac woods. She vanished from a nearby playground; her foster father left her there alone so he could do the groceries."

Nomi brings up an image on the screen - a grainy image from an early 2000s camera. The image shows the remains of a bright pink and blue backpack, torn to shreds, the remains of netting and notebooks scattered across the bright green forest floor. In the corner of the image, Riley can see the shiny black sole of a police issue boot, the remains of a wet leaf stuck to it.

"Have any suspects appeared in the past few years?" Sun asks, picking at the scabs on her left hand.

"No, the case has all been resigned to the cold case squad, which seems to consist of two detectives working part-time, whenever they get a chance to. Which is never. They've investigated twelve in four years and have solved four." Amanita says, squeezing her girlfriend's shoulder. "Not great odds, unfortunately."

Riley finishes assembling her equipment. Adjusts the songs - she's due in sixty seconds, and has a Royksopp remix cued up, and all she can see in her mind is the backpack and the leaf on the police officer's shoe.

Will catches her eye from across the dancefloor, and then he's beside her at the same time. It's disconcerting, even after their experiments, but Riley steadies herself by loading in the song, waiting for the beat to drop on the Satin Jackets beat.

"You alright?"

"Fine." Riley doesn't look up - the sight of one Will in front of her and another standing by her side will throw her off her game. She wants to win this. To earn this. This is hers.

"Okay. Just don't think about her."

"How can you not?" Riley asks, and Will's smile is wry with sadness.

"I've had way more practise than you. Good luck." He kisses her cheek, the ghost of warmth there again, and then vanishes, leaving just one Will standing on the dancefloor. Beside him, Kala and Wolfgang have noticed the exchange, and begin asking him questions. Riley tunes them out.

Fifteen seconds to go.

She begins the transition, finding the right beat to latch onto, and syncing it up so that the music turns from laidback dance groove into chilly, pulsing electronica seamlessly, and the crowd lights up.

Riley pulls her headphones on fully, immersing herself in the beat, and shuffling her queue. She has another three songs, four minutes a pop, to ace this.

Her father has never pushed success on her. She remembers him at the piano, glasses crooked and coffee cup at his elbow empty, remembers his smile. "Just try and be happy, sweetheart." He had said.

And she is. Right now, at the heart of this storm of beats and music and lights, she can see herself from her friends' position on the dancefloor. She's aglow with neon lights, the lights turning her hair blue, and she grins.

Next up is the Woodkid remix, and then the Throttle track to get the dancefloor into a frenzy.

She lets her hands do the work, and she has the entire club in the palm of her hands. She feels like flying, like she could spin on her heel like a ballerina and spin like a top, at the centre of a glow of indescribable light.

It's when she's on her last song - she eschewed Capheus' well meaning choice of that insipid Walk the Moon song for a Paris Blohm number - when she sees her.

The girl is short and blonde, with hair cascading down her back in thick, dirty tresses. She's wearing torn jeans and a black tank top that shows off her unhealthily pale skin.

Her friends - all of them assembled for tonight from across town - are watching her and dancing. Lito is shirtless, which means he interrupted some alone time with Hernando for her, and Capheus is wearing the silly pizza-styled cap he wears as a delivery driver. None of them can see her, the girl taking steps towards the decks.

The girl is saying something over and over and over again and Riley can't hear her. Her hearing's growing fuzzy, like static and white noise in her ears. Everyone is still dancing, but Will shoots her a worried look. _What's wrong,_ he mouths.

The music swells around her, and Riley feels wetness on her shirt. She touches the fabric and finds it fresh and wet and scarlet, her nose dripping an insistent path.

The girl is so close Riley can read her lips now, and it's seconds before Riley collapses, seconds before Riley blacks out and slips into a deep, simple unconsciousness, that she realises that the girl, not a ghost or a shadow but a girl, is saying, _Help me, I'm Sara, I'm alive_.

And then Riley's gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs used/mentioned in the fic are:
> 
> "You Make Me Feel Good (Original Mix)" - The Satin Jackets  
> "I Had This Thing (Sebastien Remix)" - Royksopp  
> "Iron (Mystery Jets Remix)" - Woodkid  
> "Together" - Throttle & David Spekter  
> "In Your Eyes" - Paris Blohm


End file.
